From all appearances, the secret to success for local cinema and television drama is simple: Keep the quotient of blood and violence as high as possible. Even the cops on Russia's countless crime serials pay little attention to the law, carrying out their jobs by gut instinct alone. To counteract this trend, NTV television and the publisher Palmira announced a screenplay competition in October 2003, calling for literary works, scripts and synopses with a more positive outlook.

Last week, the winners of the Rossiisky Syuzhet, or Russian Plotline, competition were announced at a lavish ceremony at the Sheraton Palace hotel. The jurors -- mostly well-known actors, writers and directors -- had a hard time sifting through the more than 5,000 submissions from Russia and abroad, only a fraction of them written by published authors. Nevertheless, they are confident that the winning compositions will be published or turned into television serials to popular acclaim.

All of the major prizes went by the name of "silver": "Silver Triangle" for best detective story, "Silver Ring" for best love story, and so on. The Silver Triangle prize went to Sergei Karpushchenko from St. Petersburg for his novel about a turn-of-the-century private eye. The Silver Ring award went to another St. Petersburg author, Olga Rykova, for her screenplay about a young girl coming to terms with adult life. The prize for best adventure story, the Silver Arrow, was awarded to Volgograd's Igor Vinnichenko for his novel about a death squad created by the Politburo during the last years of the Soviet regime.

Among the more unusual categories was the Silver Line prize for best economic plot. This award went to renowned author Anatoly Kurchatkin's new novel about a young man's coming of age in 1990s Russia, "The Sun Did Shine." In view of the competition's "positive" requirements, Kurchatkin's novel will likely differ from other takes on the same period, which describe the '90s from the exclusive perspective of rave parties and drug addiction.

Several additional prizes went to budding authors, such as Nonna Ananiyeva from Moscow, who submitted a debut novella about a boutique salesgirl who suddenly discovers that she is heir to a jewelry empire. Sergei Stepanov, also from Moscow, received an award for social importance for his account of the famous 1911 anti-Semitic show trial of Mendel Beilis in Kiev.

Each of the laureates in the six major divisions will receive $10,000, while the winners in the five other categories will be awarded $2,000.